A Kiss before dying
by oldmule
Summary: Oneshot. A moment in time between a grieving Harry and Malcolm at the end of S10. Sad but yet hopefully a bit happy!


**Hi all. Sad but hopefully enjoyable little oneshot to fill a Sunday afternoon.**

* * *

"I know you want to be back at work, Harry but is it really a good idea?"

The steely silence was sufficient answer ... or should have been.

"You've seen enough, done enough. Is it not your time? God knows you must be weary."

"Time for what, Malcolm?" Harry muttered with a resignation that sounded as though all the life and fight had finally escaped him.

"Time to do something for you."

"There's nothing I want."

"Travel? I remember you once said you'd like to travel, without the need for a false passport and a head full of safe houses."

"It's over rated."

"It's what you need."

Harry's gaze was far away. Finally he spoke.

"I'm nothing but the job, Malcolm, that's who I am. Nothing more," He gazed off blankly, "This is how it's meant to be. I've forfeited the right for anything more."

"Ruth would want –"

"Don't dare to tell me what she would want," Harry snapped, eyes suddenly wide and alive and angry.

But Malcolm was made of sterner stuff.

"Fine, then I'll tell you what she wouldn't want and that's this," his eyes flicked to the sling that supported Harry's left arm, "You throwing yourself at every dangerous, risky situation that occurs, spending more time in the field than you should, careering around as though you had a bloody death wish."

Tired, hurt hazel eyes peered across the water at a tugboat pulling against the surge of the tide.

"I'd give all this. All I have, all I could ever have for just … just a moment more … to close my eyes and when I open them to see her, to say all we'd never said … just to see her … to touch her. To tell her."

The two stood in silence for a long moment, Malcolm searching for words that would make a difference, yet knowing there were none to find. Finally with a brief glance at Harry's tortured face he turned sadly away.

The biting wind was harsh and painful, it bit into his skin.

It hurt… But didn't everything.

His eyes were tight shut, his head bent. Malcolm was right, he was weary. He didn't want to be here and yet there was nowhere else for him to be. This was all he knew. Service to the Service. If only he could have left it with her.

He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder and turned slightly, eyes opening.

"Malcolm, I'm sorry," he began, "I ..."

"Hi," said a soft voice from a warm face with a pair of shining vibrant blue eyes.

He felt the tears immediately sting his eyes and his throat constrict as emotion threatened to overwhelm him.

"Don't, Harry," she smiled, "This is your moment."

But he couldn't move, couldn't speak, stood staring.

"It's not your time," a small hand drifted to his injured arm, "so stop trying to force it. When it is I'll be here. I'll be the first Harry, the first you'll see."

And still he stood, dreaming, delirious, doubting.

"There was something you wanted to say…" she prompted him.

He couldn't feel the wind, or hear the sounds of the city. He couldn't register the dull ache from his damaged arm. He could only see her before him, solid and soft and impossible.

Eyes not daring to blink for fear she might disappear he stepped closer, a tentative hand reaching out across the divide towards her. And there, under cold fingers, her delicate skin, her soft hair brushing the back of his hand as he slipped an open palm around her treasured cheek. His senses assaulted by the sudden smell of her which washed over him deafeningly screaming memories.

"Ruth," he whispered.

She smiled lovingly at him as his eyes wandered across her features, as he bathed, soaking himself in the joy of her.

He bent his head forwards slowly, willing it not to end, not to let this moment ever end.

Soft lips met one another tenderly.

He could taste her. He could breathe her in. He could feel her under his fingers, against his chest, beneath his lips. The last kiss in death eradicated from his mind by the heat of this wonderous encounter.

Unwillingly their two heads pulled apart, his overwhelming need to look at her again. He needed to see her. To tell her.

They settled only inches away from each other, he absorbing the face before him, remembering everything. His eyes wide, his own features open and readable and awash with undisguised emotion. His mouth never even twitched to speak, he never even formed the words. He didn't need to.

He felt her hand on his chest, a strange glowing warmth.

Her eyes never left his.

"I know Harry," she said and smiled, "I've always known."

And as the tears blurred his vision, he squeezed his eyes shut forcing them out to roll down over his cheeks into the cold bitter London air where the wind took them as they fell.

It had been said a thousand times but only they had ever heard it.


End file.
